Director

Well this view is breathtaking, don't you think? It was the main reason why Ben Frazier and Mrs. Lila Acheson Wallace chose this spot when a new site for Boscobel had to be found in the early 1960s. How and where this lovely house was built in the first place and then saved from the wrecker's ball is an amazing story in itself. In it, Nance will tell you about Boscobel. After that, I 'll do another walk and talk with you, this time on the way across the lawn, over to the Belvedere.

My name is Kurt Rhoads, and I am delighted  you decided to visit us today. My wife, Nance, and I will be your guides on this virtual tour. Please start walking along this red brick path. It's not the yellow brick road, but while you are with us, you will meet some extraordinary people and hear their wonderful and hair-raising stories.

Nance and I moved here a number of years ago because this place is full of history, and one of  the most beautiful places in the world. We think so anyway - we hope you'll agree.

If you haven't already visited the mansion, you must take a guided tour of it by one of our docents. They'll tell you what went on inside Boscobel. We'll tell you what happened outside. 

Now, you have a nice decision to make: What story to hear first?


Welcome to Boscobel

States Dyckman's Dream House

The house fell into disrepair but was saved thanks to the efforts of residents who recognized its importance

The House is Saved

Boscobel was constructed between 1804 and 1808 to be the home of States Dyckman. Dyckman was the descendant of some of the area's earliest Dutch settlers and managed to retain his fortune despite being a Loyalist and working for the British Army during the American Revolution. Boscobel is the only house museum in the Hudson River Valley that was built by a British Loyalist. After working in London for a number of years, Dyckman returned to the United States in 1803 and began planning his home. During his time in England, Dyckman associated with many wealthy Britons and was perhaps inspired by the homes he visited there. He also acquired numerous furnishings and and decorative objects that he had shipped home. Construction on Boscobel began shortly after his return in 1803. At the time of Dyckman's death in 1806, only the foundation of the home was in place. His wife, Elizabeth, completed construction of the home and lived there until her death in 1823.  Boscobel remained in the Dyckman family until 1920, and in the ensuing years, the home faced demolition on numerous occasions. After the Veterans' Administration built a hospital on the property, demolition of the mansion was imminent until it was saved by a group called Friends of Boscobel. Lila Acheson Wallace, a co-founder of Reader's Digest, donated $50,000 for the home's preservation and relocation to a new site. The restored home opened to the public in 1961. It underwent another restoration in 1977 to make it more as it appeared in Dyckman's plans. Boscobel is regarded as having one of the nation's finest collections of furnishings and art from the Federal period and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Boscobel is a historic house museum set within a restored early 19th century home located in Garrison, New York. It was built between 1804 and 1808 by States Morris Dyckman and his wife Elizabeth, who over saw its completion after States passed away in 1806. The house was originally located near Montrose, New York but was moved to Garrison in 1955 after it was threatened by demolition. It was restored and opened to the public in 1961. The house is situated overlooking the Hudson River Valley and the USMA at West Point can be seen from the distance. The house contains one of the the best collections of American decorative arts and New York furniture from the Federal period.

Barney McHenry, Lila Acheson Wallace's lawyer: It was likely planned in England when States Dyckman was over there, basically Blackmailing his former employer. He was a Tory of course, and a paymaster for the British armies, and the general was taking a hefty 12%, I think, of all the expenditures. States Dyckman spent four years making sure that his boss, the general, was cleared of all charges of profiteering. States gained a handsome annuity in return, and ended up a very rich man. eager to impress Elizabeth back in America, he planned a gracious house. He named it in honor of a royal English hunting park - Boscobel, which means "beautiful woods." Alas, no real architectural plans remain for Boscobel - just a sketch on the back of an 1804 grocery bill. In 1806, the foundations were laid on a 250 acre farm in Montrose, 15 mile south of here. States Dyckman died that same year, but his young widow steeled herself and completed the house he dreamed of. It was finished in 1808. Elizabeth never remarried. She died in 1823. Boscobel remained in the family for another 65 years. But in 1924, after many owners, the property was turned into a public park, complete with ball fields. The house was not in great shape. In 1945, the Veteran's administration bought the land and a drab hospital complex mushroomed around Boscobel. The VA has little interest in historic preservation. In January 1955, Boscobel was sold at auction to a house wrecker for just $35.00. A lady in Long Island with excellent taste, Mrs. Henry P. Davison, was building a new house. Before Boscobel was demolished, she bought some of its key architectural elements from the wrecker, including the entire front facade. Fortunately, local residents and architectural historians has also been keeping an eye on Boscobel. It had not been forgotten.

You wouldn't be looking at this magnificent house without the dedication and quick thinking of local historian Benjamin West Frazier and the generosity of Lila Acheson Wallace. Without them, Boscobel would not be here at all. But I am getting ahead of the story. It actually begins over two centuries ago.  Boscobel was the dream of States Dyckman who was a Loyalist, or Tory, during the American Revolution. Well after the War was over in 1794, he married Elizabeth Corne, a young woman from a distinguished New York family. He envisioned this lovely place for her.



States Dyckman Builds His Dream House

The following year, that life was bestowed when Frazier contacted the great benefactor Lila Acheson Wallace. Frazier found the land you are standing on today himself. Even getting that was a close call. A developer had actually bought this land, divided it all up into lots for prospective owners, and started drilling for water. Two hundred feet, nothing. Two twenty-five, nothing. Two fifty, some water but not enough. So he walked away. Ben Frazier pounced. He immediately showed the property to Mrs. Wallace.  Why her? Well, in 1922, she and her husband DeWitt started a family magazine named Reader’s Digest. They were the sole owners. The magazine was a blockbuster. By its 40th anniversary, it boasted over twenty million international subscribers. Mrs. Wallace was one of Barney McHenry’s favorite clients.  Boscobel Chairman, Barney McHenry:  And so they became colossally rich, and she was looking for things to do, and this seemed like a nice project. But she cared a lot about Boscobel. So she bought the land. It’s a wonderful site! That’s one of the best parts about Boscobel-- the sight of West Point looking down the river is spectacular. She had a great eye for that sort of thing. She liked beautiful things, and this was a beautiful house.  Mrs. Wallace dedicated herself to supporting projects she loved – an entire wing, for example, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And, bless her, this place. And Mrs. Davison in Long Island, who had bought the façade? She generously agreed to give it back, as an outright gift. She kept only the architectural elements she had already installed in her new house, so copies were made of those.  In 1959, work started putting Boscobel back together, piece by piece. While that was going on Mrs. Wallace added plans for a rose garden, a period herb garden, and an orangery. A spring house would be built too, with its original façade – a suggestion of Ben Frazier’s great friend, Franny Reese, whose fierce determination helped save Storm King Mountain. Finally, in 1961, Boscobel opened to the public. Since its contents were unknown, Mrs. Wallace hired her favorite decorator, Bill Kennedy. The color scheme was blue, like the blue of her cornflower eyes. And the house was filled with period English furniture. McHenry: That was totally wrong it turned out, because if you had money, you would import glass and china and rugs. But furniture? No! It was too expensive to bring furniture over from England, and on top of that, we had some really good furniture makers here.  So in the 70s, Mrs. Wallace came through again. Under the guidance of Metropolitan Museum curator Berry Tracy, Boscobel was repainted in rich, early 19th-century colors and filled with fine American pieces, many by celebrated cabinet-maker Duncan Phyfe.  If you haven’t seen it yet, do take the time to see the fascinating exhibition in the Carriage House showing exactly how Boscobel was saved, moved and rebuilt. It’s full of photos – before and after pictures, the grounds of the VA hospital, the numbered parts, the house on the move – and of Lila Acheson Wallace and Ben Frazier, overseeing their beloved Boscobel.

Soon, in Montrose, New York, a house wrecker would be pulling up in his truck and going to work. Boscobel would be gone. When historian Ben Frazier, who lived here in Garrison, heard what was happening, he sprang into action and managed to raise $10,000 to buy the house, delaying the wrecker’s ball at the last minute. 

Miraculously, in the 1930s, the house had been carefully drawn and measured by architecture students. So after it was bought, it was dismantled and the pieces were carefully numbered and brought here to Garrison by truck. That took over five months in 1956. People who cared stored it in their garages, sheds and barns. There, it waited for another life, in pieces


The House Is Saved

Peter Kenny, Curator of the American Wing of the Metropolitan Museum, and an expert in American decorative arts, helps us out here.  Kenny: The mansion at Boscobel is a great example of American architecture from the earliest period of our independence, what we call the Federal Period. It’s essentially based on a very old Italian prototype first pioneered by Andrea Palladio, who was trying to bring to life classical antiquity in his buildings. You see at the front what looks like a temple; the classical earmarks of Italian Palladian architecture which was then picked up by the English who had gone on the grand tour to see these wonderful houses in Italy.Palladio built great villas and farmhouses in Venice and surrounding areas. And when States Dyckman decided he was going to build himself a beautiful farmhouse, he was an educated man who traveled to London where this style had been adapted by English gentry, and so he of course wanted a Palladian style house. Right in the middle of the house, you will see the entrance set back from the side walls in the shade, a very comfortable location to get out of the sun, to protect yourself in the house from bright sunlight as well, and it forms a temple in the middle of the building which relates to classical antiquity. So these centers are called loggias, a precursor to our porches that we like to sit on today, and the Dyckmans could have sat out on these porches and been extremely comfortable in the summer. They also offered opportunities for cool breezes to blow through open doorways and open windows.  You’ll also notice that, on the loggia in the center of the temple, at the very top, there are swags of fabric carved out of wood.  The swags are unusual. They extend the idea of a porch protecting you from the sun – a kind of witty joke, as if they could actually be rolled down in hot weather. And that’s what they looked like from the river. The siding on the front of the house was also an illusion. The boards don’t overlap – they’re carefully lined up one above the other. From a distance, they give the impression of flat stone – what grand English – or Italian – houses were made of. But wood was less expensive, easier to work with, and plentiful in New York.  Besides, States Dyckman’s cousin, who helped build Boscobel, was a skilled carpenter who could put planks together in this elegant manner. He did it only on the front. What mattered was the impression of wealth and taste that the Dyckman’s visitors got as they approached from the river. Most people came that way, because 18th-century roads were not only terrible, but full of brigands. There are lots of big windows too, filled with very expensive glass. Kenny: Most of this would have been imported. We have documentation that it was sent up from New York City, many, many panes of glass. What States Dyckman was thinking about was the view of the river and also bringing light into the interior.  The beauty of architecture is the way light interacts with spaces. It would be wonderful, if you get the opportunity, to go inside and take a look at the effect of light. Also, look at the glass when you’re in there. It’s imperfect. It wavers a little bit. It was blown glass, and as a result, it slightly distorts the view in a very pleasant way. Much of this window glass is original.  At the back of the house, there’s a beautiful arched window with two smaller windows below. They bring light into the great stairway.  Kenny: So when you’re in the house, you’re standing in the entry hall, you look up the stairs, and you see this beautiful Palladian window, which yet again is a reminder of the sophistication of the design along the Hudson that States Dyckman planned.

Stand back for a minute and look at this beautiful house. It’s easy to see why it’s been called a superb example of Federal architecture. But what does that mean? 

Well, first of all, the house reflects the way its owner, Loyalist States Dyckman, wanted to present himself – apparently as a fine country gentleman. So he used the style fashionable in England at the time, which reflected Italian styles rooted in ancient Greece and Rome. For example, the center of the house, with the pillars, is meant to remind us of a classical temple on a hill. Doesn’t sound very English. In fact, an Italian architect named Palladio came up with the idea back in the 16th century. 

The Iconic Architecture of Boscobel

The plan had nothing to do with the way the mansion had looked in the 1800s in its original site, south of here. There too, the house presented its grand façade to the Hudson for visitors and passing vessels to admire. But it was surrounded by farmland, where animals roamed free. And though the back of the house included a generous window to let light into the grand stairwell, there was no long entrance drive or courtyard leading up to it. The two majestic maples in front of the mansion were brought in to give the landscape a feeling of age and permanence.  You probably noticed the apple trees as you walked from the carriage house. They’re laid out in perfect rows on either side of the path. They are old varieties. But they bear no resemblance to States Dyckman’s extensive orchards, which included more than 225 trees -- pears, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches and nectarines. All imported by ship from England.  Today, people are more concerned with historical accuracy. Mrs. Wallace herself had the interior of the mansion redecorated when inventory was found of the original furnishings. Recently, shrubs planted around the base of the house were removed to be truer to the Dykemans’ era. In the 1800s, people feared that plants close to a house might add dampness, invade foundations with their roots, or provide cover for eavesdroppers and thieves -- to say nothing of sheltering insects and small animals in a time when window screens were unknown. The grand English houses States Dyckman admired had bare foundations too. In fact, except for the house itself and the clearing in front of it, the orangery and herb garden come close to something Mrs. Dyckman might have actually had at Boscobel. The grounds at Boscobel aren’t historically accurate – that doesn’t make them any less beautiful. So enjoy them. They are here for you – and as a tribute to the taste and generosity of Lila Acheson Wallace.

In the summer of 1960, the reconstruction of the house was completed here. But it stood in a barren field. That certainly did not suit Boscobel’s benefactor, Lila Acheson Wallace. A year earlier, she had hired the landscape designer Richard Webel to come up with a solution. He proposed a classical plan entirely to her elegant taste -- the result is the grand setting you see around you here at Boscobel. It was accomplished less than a year later, when the mansion first opened to the public. 

Boscobel

Welcome to Boscobel

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context